The 'Lone' Hero of Vale (RWBY & Link)

by SRenthusiast

Team RWBY runs into a classmate while on a self-assigned mission, when they realize he does not have any teammates because he is a one person team. Link quickly proves he's not just a swordsman and is very much worthy of calling himself a huntsman despite a dark past that correlates with major events. (More of a fusionfic since its Link in Remnant.) (Story is undergoing re-writes)

44. Bad Blood in Haven

Continent of Anima: City of Mistral, Residential Apartment

The time reads exactly five o'clock in the morning and it has been approximately twenty-nine hours since Link, Qrow, and team RNJR were safely flown into Mistral by two airships that noticed them due to the defeat and murder of the monstrous Nuckelavee grimm. Qrow was given immediate medical attention upon touching down in Mistral and then the six guests from Vale were taken to a pristine apartment to sleep for a night or two. The first day in Mistral was uneventful as everyone worried for Qrow, to the point where Ruby remained by his side until the middle of the day, where she got some inspiration to write a letter to send home. Telling her father Taiyang Xiao Long and her sister Yang not only details about their journey, but an inspirational letter: Admitting that Yang was right about how traveling to Haven would be reckless, how she said 'bad things just happen' being correct, how they kept waking up and taking steps in a never ending journey, how scary it was and anyone could have easily given up, the way losing someone or multiple people affects others, but ultimately how important it is to never give up and to continue fighting for personal reasons and for those who are too lost and weak to fight for themselves and most important to protect loved ones and ensure nobody else is lost. Lastly Ruby expresses how much she misses Yang, Weiss, and Blake and hopefully one day team RWBY is reunited, but for the time being, their journey in Mistral begins as team RNJR. Additionally, Ruby mentions how the four of them ran into Qrow and Link along the way, and when the former recovers, he's going to take them to meet the Headmaster of Haven Academy, Professor Leonardo Lionheart. After the beautifully written letter is concluded, Ruby remains checking on Qrow while finally getting the chance to relax herself. Each room given to them has two beds each, with Ruby and Qrow getting one room. In another room, Jaune, Nora and Ren spent the day in their room presumably keeping each other company and mostly cheering up Jaune, who reels from the loss of Pyrrha and finds himself staring at his sword and shield that rest against the wall. The third room belongs to Link despite having the two beds, with Jaune taking one bed and Ren and Nora taking the other bed to sleep in together. The former one person team from Beacon Academy sits on the floor, sitting against the wall on the windows side, engulfed in shadows the entire day. Nobody checks on him for the first twenty-four hours as everyone kept to themselves and rested, but not Link… he sits in the same spot, only stretching his arms and legs every now and then along with arching his back to pop it. All that runs through his head is the conversation he had with Jaune before they fought the monster together. How he was blamed for the Fall of Beacon and the deaths of innocent people, soldiers, students, Penny, Ozpin... and Pyrrha; the last name emphasized greatly as well. Now Link wonders if the former team JNPR leader has twisted or misconstrued his words to Nora and Ren, and they would most likely believe their former leader over someone they have tension with. However, until he hears from them directly, all that can happen for the time being is speculation. Now that it's a new day...

Knock! Knock! Knock!

"Hello?" Link mumbles and rubs his extremely fatigued eyes, his vision is blurry and he cannot tell who is opening the door to his room. "C-come in, I guess."

"Link?" Ruby speaks, she initially cannot see him in the darkness but when the huntress sees brown boots sticking out of shadows, she runs over to Link and kneels down in front of him. "There you are silly, I come with great news. Uncle Qrow is doing much better, he's been able to get up and walk around, I think today is the day we finally get to visit Haven."

"Really? That's good." Link nods and opens his eyes. "Wait, why are you up right now? It's way too early for you to be awake-!"

"Ahem!" Ruby crosses her arms. "The person on zero sleep is not going to tell me when I should and shouldn't be awake."

"You got me there." Link rolls his eyes. "Alright then, what brings you here? You didn't stop by all of yesterday and now you're here at a very early time. Is everything okay?"

"Everything is just okay." Ruby sighs in relief. "I'm just so happy we're finally in Mistral, it felt like we were never going to make it out of the multiple, multiple... Quite frankly, billions of forests we had to suffer through! All the Grimm, don't even mention the last one we faced, that was a nightmare! And of course the people that got in our way too. I'm just glad we ran into you and uncle Qrow along the way. I don't know where we'd be without you two."

"Worst case scenario, Tyrian kills Jaune, Nora, and Ren, you escape and speed your way to Mistral alone." Link chuckles

"LINK!" Ruby shakes her head and wags an index finger. "No! Bad! Bad! Bad Link!"

"Sorry, that was me attempting to joke… I've been out of practice." He glares at the ground, having just lied about 'joking'. "Being away and not in a joking mood all this time will do that."

"I'll let it slide this time." Ruby thoroughly sits down on her knees to make herself more comfortable. "I've been thinking about you too, ya know… Worrying even. Sorry for not coming over yesterday, I do trust Mistral medics of course… But I couldn't leave uncle Qrow's side."

"I understand and don't worry, I'm not mad at you for not coming over to check on me." Link shakes his head. "It's more about the time. Have you BEEN awake and worrying about me?"

"Mayyybeee." Ruby blushes in embarrassment. "You didn't say a word when we got to Mistral, even the Mistral pilots from the ships thought something was wrong with you as if you had a head injury. And well, I know you're not sleeping well or sleeping at all. Look at you, two perfectly comfy beds and you choose the wooden floor, why?"

"A couple of reasons. If anything happens or a monster like Tyrian knows where we are, I want to be ready to fight. I also do not think I need sleep regardless. My eyes and body are tired from the lack of sleep, but I simply cannot fall asleep."

"That's really heartbreaking, Link." Ruby pouts, her eyes are now full of sadness. "Would it help if I stayed with you? Uncle Qrow said he's okay to be alone now. We can stay here until we have to go."

"You don't have to do that." Link shakes his head again. "I know you care and I don't know what's going to make me sleep because trust me, despite how angry and full of hate I am, I have tried going to sleep before I came to Anima. You name it, tea, medicine, sleeping form, reading, breathing exercises… the list goes on."

"Oh Link, no wonder that stuff didn't work. You've never been one to try all these fancy pantsy remedies." Ruby laughs. "If you don't want to go to bed, can you at least tell me what's on your mind? And don't say nothing because I know your brain is always thinking of something."

A long pause takes place with Ruby patiently waiting for Link to spit out an answer. The latter on the other hand, simply wants to keep it all bottled to himself because it is primarily him overthinking. Along with the usual things on his mind, Ruby and Weiss and lastly… his deceased friends

"C'mon!" Ruby touches one of his boots and shakes his foot. "Everyone else is asleep, I promise it's only you and me."

"Ruby…" Link sighs, relenting carefully before beginning at last. "I'm not worried about other people hearing me. Jaune made his stance very clear and I am certain Ren and Nora feel the same way. If not, Jaune will make sure they do, he's going to manipulate what I said. But, the difference between what we both said is that one of us told the truth and I am secure with myself as a person."

"Is that why it is? Jaune? Don't worry about him, he's just very unhappy and-!"

"I know he is, I understand his pain but I experienced it first hand too. He lost Pyrrha, so did everyone, we all lost Pyrrha. It's different with you and I… WE WERE THERE!" Link balls up his hands and shakes violently. "We saw it with our own eyes and that's an event that keeps occurring in my head every single day. Has anything like that happened to you too?"

"N-no." Ruby stutters, which instantly gives her away

"Ruby?" Link leans forward so now his face is completely visible and not just his eyes and boots, "It's okay, Pyrrha was really special to us and everyone misses her, you can tell me." He reaches for Ruby's hand on his boot and lightly touches it. "Have you seen her? Heard her? Imagined her?"

"Heard." Ruby mumbles sadly, "Every day we slept in the woods since we made it to Anima. Had no dreams the entire time, I only saw black and occasionally some stars, then I could hear her voice. She said 'Do you believe in destiny?' then I could hear Cinder… she said 'Yes.' after that she would call out for Jaune a-and…" Tears form in the huntress eyes and immediately fall down her cheeks. "Cinder… she killed Pyrrha and then I screamed for her, every single night, Link."

"I'm sorry I asked." Link sighs and adjusts himself to sit on his knees directly in front of Ruby, within seconds the boy hugs her tightly

"D-don't be!" Ruby leans her head into his shoulder. "It happened to you too. We were both there and we couldn't save her."

"That's not true." Link hugs her tightly with one arm and uses the other to reach upwards and place it on the back of Ruby's head for comfort. "You can't blame yourself. Blame me instead."

"Y-you?" Ruby attempts to move her head back but the hand prevents her. "Why you?"

"Isn't it obvious?" Link's eyes well up. "I got there first and I actually had the time to defend and tend to Pyrrha while getting the chance to attack Cinder, but my efforts were useless. If we swapped places, I have no doubt you would have saved Pyrrha if you had the time."

"No!" Ruby pushes back and breaks the grip on her head to look at Link directly in the eyes. "No! No! No! No! You can't do that to yourself too! You already blame yourself too much for everything that happened, you cannot think about a 'what if' and believe it. I won't let you do this to yourself."

"I said I would be honest with you that day and I withheld that from you, I'm sorry." Link closes his eyes and shakes his head. "But I already did it to myself. All this time I've been telling myself that too. I keep replaying the deaths of Ray and Pyrrha, while imagining Amber's death now that Jaune gave us precise details on what happened and I can't help but wonder what could have been if I was… good enough? The Atlas soldier who killed Ray, Cinder who killed both Amber and Pyrrha, it makes me so angry, Ruby and it was made worse too when Tyrian was sent after you. They want you too and I know that had to be a personal request from Cinder."

"Link, you're thinking about all of this too much…" Ruby puts both hands on Link's face and forces his eyelids open with her thumbs, therefore opening the 'floodgates'

"That's all I can think about." Link shakes his head and with his free hand, prioritizes wiping Ruby's tears away before his own. "I want to be the one to kill Cinder… and Emerald, Mercury, Tyrian, anyone who has ever wanted to hurt or kill you."

"S-stop!" Ruby lets go of Link's eyelids and wipes his tears with her sleeves. "This isn't you Link, you're not a vengeful person, I know when you told us about Ray it sounded like you were, but you're better than that. You only kill if you have to, remember? Those were your own words."

"I know." Link hugs Ruby tighter and whispers in her ear. "Things just change, I hope one day I am able to live up to how you remember me. Right now I just don't know how to do that."

"Sure you do." Ruby caves in and hugs him back. "And if you forgot then don't worry, you have me and I will always be here to support you. No matter what."

"No matter what?" Link chuckles. "Are you sure about that? You saw how I spoke to Jaune."

"You both said things that should've never been said. Even if you both spoke from the heart, it was not the right time or place for that conversation. If we had the conversation right here and now… I'm sure the outcome would have been a lot better than how it actually turned out." Ruby's eyes light up with joy. "Better tone, mood, words, everything."

"Same optimistic cheery Ruby, I love that about you." Link cracks a smile. "Ruby?"

"Yeah?"

"What do you think about what was said about me?" Link speaks up and puts distance between them by backing away slightly. "Do you think it's my fault that Beacon was destroyed because I didn't speak up sooner? Or all the deaths that occurred? Because I know it's not that simple and Jaune is ignorant for suggesting I caused all of that, but I care a lot about your opinion."

"How about we make a deal, I will answer your questions if you get in bed." Ruby smiles warmly. "I promise nobody knows we're and I'm in no danger… If anything, I feel safer here with you."

"Deal." Link wraps both arms around Ruby's waist and pushes off his knees in one swift motion to get up to his feet without an issue. Following this, he frees one of his arms and puts it under Ruby's legs to carry the huntress more easily for him and more comfortably for her sake

"Oooh, someone got stronger." Ruby giggles

"You flatterer." Link sighs. "I've always been able to pick you up."

Link rolls his eyes playfully and walks over to one bed, gently sets Ruby down, pulls the covers out from under her and drapes them over her. Next, he walks over to the other bed and quickly takes the sword and shield off his back, setting them down on the floor. Following this, it's time to remove his belt, which he takes off carefully and sets on the ground with plenty of caution. The boy makes sure that Ray's canteen and Pyrrha's circlet do not collide against the floor with any force at all

"You're almost there." Ruby turns over to her side and watches Link happily

"I never thought I'd need encouragement to get into bed but that's the reality of my situation." He lets out a chuckle and climbs onto the bed, not getting under the covers. "Your turn now."

"Okay!" Ruby cheers, despite the dark topic. "I don't agree with anything Jaune said and I think he just said all of that to hurt your feelings. Or maybe he does truly believe that, regardless, he's wrong. What happened to Beacon was awful but the blame goes to Cinder, Emerald, Mercury, Adam, the White Fang, the Grimm they brought to the school… All the responsible parties. The huntsmen, huntresses and soldiers who died knew what they were doing, it's why we signed up to do this. To defeat bad guys, Grimm and protect the world. But the innocent people who died, we're on this journey for them too, they didn't sign up to fight Grimm and it's a real shame that's how they went. None of this is your fault Link, you fought to protect Beacon and everyone you loved that day, nobody can take that away from you."

"Thank you." Link weakly smiles as he stares upwards to the ceiling. "It really means a lot to-!"

"Ah ah! No sir." Ruby frowns. "Now I need to talk about what you said. Maybe you can blame the General for not listening to you when you had the chance to speak to him, Glynda, my uncle Qrow and Professor Ozpin. But you cannot blame Jaune for his actions at the vault, being unable to stop Pyrrha from fighting Cinder, or not believing you… Nobody is perfect, Link. He made mistakes, we all did. He didn't believe you, but neither did I. So if you're going to be mad at him, be mad at me too, it's only fair."

"I can't do that Ruby." Link's smile fades instantly. "I already told you that I forgave you but since my bias towards you isn't a good enough reason how about this... You were on the fence that day we talked at the entrance of the school, hours before I confronted Professor Ozpin, Glynda, Qrow, and Ironwood. You didn't outright hate me the way Coco, Yang, Nora, or Jaune did. You also didn't quietly shut me out like Blake, Ren, or Velvet. And of course you actually heard me out unlike Fox, Yatsuhashi, Sun and Neptune. That is another reason why I forgave you and will not forgive them, you infuriated me but still had compassion and empathy. It wasn't immediate like Weiss, Skylar, or Pyrrha, but it was there… Inside your heart."

"L-link." Ruby thinks of what to say, but her tongue is tied

"And I can blame Jaune for what happened in the vault." Link scoffs. "Professor Ozpin told him to stand guard and the moment he got distracted, Amber died. She was always going to die but she died in the worst way, now Cinder has all the power of the Fall Maiden. Tell me, is it really unfair of me to blame Jaune for Amber's death? He could have prevented that."

Ruby gasps, the silver eyed huntress is too stunned to counter the foul words being spoken of another dear friend to her. She opens her mouth but no words come out, something that was very familiar for a long time to the blonde friend in the bed next to her

"I believe I can blame him for not stopping Pyrrha too. She wanted to find Cinder to fight for Beacon, for us and to defeat the root of all evil. Should she have? With hindsight now we know, Pyrrha should not have fought Cinder. We cannot turn back time unfortunately and if Jaune really wants to play the blame game, he doesn't know what he's up against."

"O-okay but-!" Ruby whimpers in sadness, her lip quivers but she cannot continue hearing this. "What you said about Pyrrha's weapons wasn't right. I understand you like to hold onto items and I would do that too. But we're different and this was Jaune's-! No! This was team RNJR's way of honoring Pyrrha. Now she will always be with Jaune... All of us really. And I don't mean this as a personal attack, but she would have really hated what you said."

"I know." Link smiles. "I can already picture Pyrrha frowning at me for being cruel, but it's how I felt and how I continue to feel."

"Then why are you being cruel?" Ruby asks with concern on her face

"Because I am very angry, everything I said comes directly from the heart and they aren't words I regret saying either." Link turns his head to look at Ruby. "We should sleep now."

"You mean it?! You're going to sleep?" Ruby smiles

"I promise to try my best." Link nods before shifting his head, looking at the ceiling again

"That's good enough for me. Goodnight Link!" Ruby giggles and closes her eyes

Link sighs, shakes his head and despite knowing the outcome, he closes his eyes nonetheless, for the promise he made Ruby. He feels instant relief as his eyes are strained and often in pain, with the huntsman unable to remember the last time he slept. However, despite how good it feels to close his eyes or the comfort he feels from resting in a bed again for the first time since he was last at Beacon Academy, Link knows deep down that he will remain awake and simply waits with his eyes closed until it is time to get up and travel to Haven Academy

---

Many hours Later

"Wake up, sleepy head!" Ruby exclaims and pokes Link's cheek

(Finally. Resting was nice but keeping my eyes shut was proving to be a challenge. That's what I get for not turning away from Ruby before shutting my eyes.)

"Hm?" Link pretends to act tired as he slowly opens his eyes. "What time is it?"

"Time to get ourselves to Haven." Qrow's voice is heard, much different from his niece's happy high pitched voice. "We're already taking the long way as it is. Get your stuff and let's go, Leo will be waiting for us when we enter the Academy."

(Ah yes THE Professor Lionheart that Skylar had so much high praise for, I actually cannot wait to meet him. With he and Qrow on our side, that will be two strong huntsmen, team RNJR and me. Which will be good enough to take down anybody.)

"Sounds great, I won't take long, I just need my weapons and belt." Link rapidly sits up and reaches for his belt, but a sudden urge of pain flows through his head. "UGH!"

"Link?!" Ruby sprints over and kneels in front of him, she places her hands on his cheeks and pushes back on his eyelids again. "What's wrong? Do we need to rest here another day?"

"It's fatigue." Qrow smirks. "You said this kid hasn't slept, it's finally catching up to him."

"B-but he just slept a lot, unless..." Ruby frowns. "Were you pretending to be asleep the whole time?!"

"...Yes." Link sighs and shakes his head to slip it out of Ruby's grasp. "I got rest, that's all I need."

"N-no it's not!"

"Ruby." Qrow speaks up. "If he wants to slowly kill himself, we can't stop him."

"You're one to talk about slowly dying." Link smirks, grabs his belt and stands up, he puts it on and pats the canteen and circlet lightly

"Nice joke." Qrow rolls his eyes and notices the canteen. "I have a question, kid. Have you had anything to drink?"

"I drink water, yes." Link nods and pats the canteen

"You know what I'm talking about, don't play dumb."

"What are you getting at anyway?" Link throws his sword over his back first. "Everyone wanted me to stop drinking and I did. After I left Patch, no alcohol was bought or consumed by me ever since."

"You've gone completely cold turkey?" Qrow laughs. "So it's fatigue and lack of alcohol that's hurting you. How stupid are you? Nobody ever cold turkey's anything efficiently, you have to get it out of your system slowly."

"Maybe I would have if I bothered to go buy it and do that but… I didn't." Link shakes his head and finishes by adjusting his shield over his sword

"Isn't that a good thing?" Ruby asks

"Normally? Sure." Qrow nods. "But in this case, this kid doesn't sleep well or at all, barely eats, only drinks water and something he used to consume in excess amounts, he's completely cut out. All of those factors added on top of him traveling consecutively, constantly fighting Grimm, humans, and a psychotic faunus also doesn't help him much."

"What do you suggest Link do then?"

"Find a good balance. Then slowly get off of it." Qrow looks directly at Link, "I know you're strong, fast, capable and you've got a lot of anger to let out on the enemy. But we need you sane up here." He pokes his temple with an index finger. "If you're going to go crazy because of your self-inflicted wounds, stay away from us when you do it."

"Duly noted." Link raises his eyebrows in sarcasm. "We should get moving now."

"Let's go then, we're waiting on you." Qrow shrugs

Ruby and Qrow leave the room to give Link more time to himself if needed, but a minute does not even pass before the latter exits the room and joins Qrow and team RNJR. Ruby smiles at him, Qrow expresses nothing towards him, but the other three are different stories. Jaune frowns and turns away, Nora glares at him and shakes her and lastly, Ren balls up his hands into fists. Nothing comes of this tension despite it being so apparent. It's Qrow who calls out and leads them down a long spiral of stairs once they leave their temporary apartment

"We're almost there everybody. The City of Mistral…" Qrow mumbles as he, Link and team RNJR walk through a cracked stone tunnel lit up by semi transparent lanterns

"Ugh!" Nora playfully scoffs, "It's about time!" She smirks. "Whose idea was it to walk again?"

"We didn't have any other options for transportation!" Ruby shouts. "Besides, we came out of it fine."

"Wellll, we did face many obstacles." Ren speaks up. "Broken airships, destroyed settlements, mons-!"

"All those people and monsters that tried to MURDER US!" Jaune interjects and cuts off Ren

"One person, Jaune." Link remarks and instantly three heads turn to glare at him. "What? Did I stutter?"

"Nobody was talking to you." Jaune shakes his head

"So?" Link raises an eyebrow. "I can speak when I want, right?"

"Listen, we don't have the time or patience for your bull-!"

"Jaune!" Ruby stomps her foot on the ground

"W-what?" Jaune stutters. "You said when we got to Mistral-!"

"I lied, how about you two never argue? EVER?!" Ruby crosses her arms

"No it's okay." Link shrugs. "If he wants to be rude, I can be rude too. It was only one person and this person made you look pathetic. You let him climb on your shield and scare you with a crazy stare."

"That's it!"

"Oh, are we fighting now?" Link shuffles backwards and grips the handle of his sword

Jaune turns and angrily approaches the boy, but a hand on his shoulder from Qrow makes both he and Link put a stop to what they are doing immediately. Qrow's eyes glimmer for a brief second and he looks supremely pissed off. Jaune stands down and Link releases the grip on his sword

"I don't have the time or patience for bickering kids!" Qrow frowns and turns Jaune around with the one hand on his shoulder. "Especially the most emotional ones in the group."

"Men." Nora shrugs sarcastically

"Now walk and I don't want to hear you two arguing until AFTER we meet with Leo, got it?" Qrow glances at both of them

"Yeah yeah." Jaune shakes his head

(Whatever, all he did was save Jaune from a swift beating.) Link gives no verbal answer but does nod and keeps walking along with the rest of the group

"So yeah, people and monsters tried to murder us." The taller blonde boy mumbles

"C'mon Jaune, we were fine." Ruby smiles and nudges Qrow's arm. "Only one of us almost died."

"Hey." Qrow chuckles

"Make that two." Nora places both hands on her hips and looks at Ren. "This guy was asking to get pulled apart by a Grimm."

"Hey." Ren rolls his eyes sarcastically

"So, how much farther is it to Haven Academy from where we stayed?" Jaune asks

"We're almost there." Qrow sticks both hands in his pockets. "But I figured I'd take you kids on the scenic route. Let you get a taste of what Mistral is really about before we get serious."

The six huntsmen and huntresses approach a pair of large, wooden double doors almost as big as Beacon Academy's entrance doors. Qrow steps forward and opens them, which completely nullifies the dim lanterns as the tunnel is full of sunlight within seconds. Ruby is the first one to eagerly run out, stopping at the wooden railing to gaze over the city in awe. There are many beautiful houses and buildings trailing upwards and downwards on mountains, the most noticeable feature of Mistral is something they have seen before but still stands out nonetheless, the enormous waterfall at the highest point in the city

"Wooowww!" Ruby gasps, her big bubbly silver eyes widen with joy, the next person alongside her is Link, despite starting at the back of the group. "This... is... awesome!"

"I couldn't agree any more." Link smiles

"It's certainly something." Qrow speaks calmly as he, Jaune, Nora and Ren catch up seconds later

"They really made the most out of these mountains." Jaune straightens his hand and places it over his eyebrows to block the sun as he admires all the structures

"That's right, every single inch." Qrow nods

"Oh my gosh, look at all the weapons!" Ruby perfectly points to a kiosk selling all kinds of swords, machetes, daggers, sais, and projectiles

"Vendors here'll sell you just about anything... whether they should or not." Qrow shrugs

"They sure will." Link chuckles, this sight is a faintly familiar one to him

"Oh that's right. You've been here before, haven't you?"

"It's been a long time Qrow." Link nods. "All I recall is the waterfall and the lower levels."

"The lower levels?" Ren questions the vagueness in his words

"He's referring to how Mistral is structured. The higher up we are the nicer it is, so definitely stay away from the lower levels." Qrow warns them. "If the kid's warning won't do it, maybe mine will. That's where you find criminals, bounty hunters, black market folk, mercenaries, you name it."

"Link would know about the lower levels." Jaune scoffs. "The life of a mercenary."

"Keep pushing it Jaune." Link rolls his eyes. "I'll remember that."

"ANYWAY! We won't have to worry about the lower levels!" Nora exclaims. "Because we're only going up!"

---

Thirty Minutes Later: Mistral, Haven Academy

After some more history lessons and factual information about Mistral, Link and team RNJR receive another surprise from Qrow. The wooden platform they were standing on whilst admiring Mistral also acts as an elevator. The group of six rise and soon they are on the same level as their destination, the entire trip through Anima is now leading to this moment. They all sprint and are quick to step foot inside Haven Academy. However, something is immediately off about the entire place, there seems to be nobody around: no students, staff, the headmaster is nowhere to be found either. Nevertheless, after entering the school they stop at the courtyard, the combination of three young adults and two teenagers look around in awe

"We made it everyone."

Ruby smiles, blinks rapidly, wipes a tear from her eye and sighs in relief. Jaune places a hand on her shoulder, only for the blonde to be outshined by Link, who puts his arm around Ruby and practically pushes Jaune's hand off

"Seriously?" Jaune frowns

"Stop it." Ruby whispers towards Link

"Okay… Sorry." Link mumbles

"You should be saying sorry to Jaune first." She chuckles

"Absolutely… not." Link shakes his head

Qrow stops behind the five of them, while the former Beacon students look around for a short period of time before they continue on their way, the man takes a moment to glance around and lets out a sigh of disappointment, he notices the silence and emptiness the most out of everyone. Everyone stops speaking when they notice Qrow's lack of enthusiasm and let him lead the way, as he knows where they need to go next. A short walk later, they finds themselves walking down a fancy hallway, the students continue following Qrow, the silence is deafening and now everyone is taking notice about it

"This is weird." Ruby mumbles, then cups her hands over her mouth. "Hello?!"

Silence

"Maybe try…" Nora copies the same action to make her voice more prominent. "LOUDER?!"

"I agree with Ruby." Ren nods. "There doesn't seem to be anyone here."

"Well, I guess school isn't really in session right now." Jaune suggests. "Maybe that's it."

"Unlikely." Link shakes his head. "It's too quiet, maybe all the students were allowed to go home but there would at least be staff here."

"He's right." Qrow frowns and sprints forward. "Something's not right!"

Ruby, Jaune, Nora, and Ren all question what isn't right but Link sprints with Qrow, no questions asked. Team RNJR gives up on their questions and picks up the pace. What comes next after another short sprint and running through a pair of wooden doors is the six of them are now standing directly across another pair of wooden double doors; they are bigger, indicating this room is the most important

"Get ready! There could be trouble." Qrow says with anger, draws his sword and extends the blade without hesitation

The rest of them draw their weapons: Jaune with Crocea Mors, Ren aims both Stormflower machine guns, Nora has Magnhild in its grenade launcher state, and Ruby also has Crescent Rose in its sniper rifle state. Link on the other hand, does not draw his weapons, he has suspicions about what is going on but feels no immediate danger

(Whatever is behind that door is no threat. I won't even bother.) He retreats and stands at the back of the group now

"What's wrong? Scared?" Jaune taunts

"...Hm?" Link's head snaps up like he was previously zoned out. "Did you say something?"

"Grrr." Jaune frowns

Qrow brings his right foot up in the air and kicks the door open with a straightforward front kick. Just on the other side is Haven's headmaster Professor Leonardo Lionheart, who throws his hands in the air and lets out a petrified scream with widened eyes. Ruby, Jaune, and Nora's eyes all widen as they scream too. The only composed ones out of this entire ordeal are Link and Ren, who both glare at the headmaster. Standing on one foot far too long, Qrow suddenly loses his balance, and falls. Shortly after, Professor Lionheart yelps and briefly faints. Team RNJR drops their guard and lower their weapons, all of them are dumbfounded while Qrow sits up; meanwhile, Link walks forward to check on the unconscious headmaster

"Is he okay?" Jaune asks

"Hm…" Link thinks about what to do for a short while, before nonchalantly putting his foot on Professor Lionheart's chest

"Augh!" The headmasters grunts

"Link!" Jaune frowns. "You can't do that to a headmaster!"

"You asked if he was okay and now you know, he's alive." Link shrugs and crouches down to help him

"Uhhh, Professor… Lionheart?" Ruby asks

"Here I'll get him up." Link grabs both of the headmaster's arms and bends them inwards, hands resting on his midsection

"Please don't break anything." Nora grumbles

"Yeah seriously, he's going to blame me for making him pass out, let's not give him something else to complain about." Qrow shrugs as he stands up

"You did kind of kick down his door, Uncle Qrow." Ruby giggles

"..." The boy ignores all the voices, squats down and lifts Professor Lionheart up by his shoulders enough to get a bear hug grip. With minimal effort, Link pushes up to his feet and lifts the professor up to his feet as well

"See what I mean about stronger." Ruby smiles

"Oh please." Jaune scoffs. "It wasn't that impre-!"

"Stop being jerks to each other!" Ruby shouts

"Why are you getting mad at him?" Nora frowns. "Link is the one being a je-!"

"Shut up." Qrow dismisses everyone. "We're here to talk to Leo, not reignite a little slap fight."

"Couldn't agree any more." Link retorts sarcastically as he shakes the professor until he gasps abruptly

"WHAT THE?!" Professor Lionheart feels constricted, but then realizes someone is holding him. "You can let go of me young man."

"...Of course." Link nods and releases his grip

"Qrow!" The man frowns. "Why did you do that? For crying out loud, you nearly scared me half to death! Don't you know how to knock?! Where's your courtesy?"

"My courtesy?" Qrow growls. "You're one to talk. Why weren't you waiting for us at the entrance? We arranged our meeting outside in the courtyard."

"Huh? Our meeting? But that's not until-!" The headmaster of Haven pulls out a pocket watch from his coat and checks it, his eyes widened instantaneously. "Oh, darn it! My sincerest apologies. I guess time slipped away from me."

"Sooo… Where is everybody?" Nora stares at the professor. "There's no students, teachers, nobody... Just you."

"Ah, you must be the students Qrow mentioned." Professor Lionheart smiles. "Greetings, you all are…?"

"O-oh! Yes sir!" Ruby smiles and gives a salute. "Ruby Rose."

"Jaune Arc." The blonde nods

"Nora Valkyrie." She poses with hands on her hips

"Lie Ren." He sets his arms to his sides and bows

"And you young man?" Professor Lionheart looks behind him. "Thank you for helping me."

"No problem, sir." The boy nods. "My name is Link. One of your students Skylar had nothing but good things to say about you."

"Did she? Skylar Harrison has been one of the biggest inspirations this academy has ever witnessed. To receive praise from her means the world." The Haven headmaster nods. "You faced her in the tournament, isn't that right? You're the one person team Professor Ozpin assigned, your name has flown around the other academies young man."

"I did face her in the tournament yes. And really? My name? Talked about in other academies? That's… Nice." Link nods. "Now that everyone's introduced themselves, it's time for the obvious to be pointed out. You're avoiding the question Professor Lionheart. Where is everybody?"

"You wanna answer him Leo?" Qrow smirks

"Y-yes! But first of all, it's a pleasure to meet you all." The older man chuckles. "Leonardo Lionheart at your service. Your question, yes. I'm afraid most of my staff are currently away until classes resume, but-!"

"What?!" Qrow upon hearing this steps forward and is now directly face to face with Professor Lionheart. "Leo, you can't be serious. Who's guarding the relic?

"Qrow!" Professor Lionheart panics. "T-the children…"

"They already know." Qrow shrugs. "I kind of had to fill them in after their school got destroyed. What do you mean your staff is away?"

"You… Filled them in?" He takes multiple steps backward into his office. "Please come in, we can talk more in here. Make yourselves comfortable everyone."

Nora and Ren quickly race to sit down on a comfortable looking couch to the right side of the room. Professor Lionheart sits at his desk and the rest of the group remains standing up. Qrow is directly in front of the Haven headmaster with his arms crossed. Jaune is behind him to the left, Ruby is behind Qrow and to his right. Link, staying true to his recent nature, stands right behind Ruby protectively

"I have to say, Qrow. Telling the children about the relic, coming all this way on foot... This all seems very reckless." Professor Lionheart props his head up on his hand while his elbow touches the desk. "Even for you."

"No, Leo." Qrow shakes his head. "Reckless is leaving one of the Relics completely unguarded. Reckless is not checking in with Oz for ages!"

"There was nothing to check in about before the fall of Beacon!" Leonardo balls up his other hand, "Since that day, Mistral has been in chaos! I know you couldn't know since communications are unavailable, but Vale wasn't the only Kingdom to suffer that night. Everyone was watching. Every house in every Kingdom saw that poor girl…" He stops himself and closes his eyes

"Penny." Ruby looks away and fidgets with her skirt

"Yes, that poor girl ripped to pieces by that negligent and vicious girl P-!"

"What did you just call her?!" Link rapidly steps forward. "Don't even say Pyrrha's name if you are going to insult her!"

"Q-qrow!" Leonardo quickly jumps to his feet and takes multiple steps back

"Knock it off kid." Qrow reaches to grabs Link's shoulder

"...!" Link slaps his hands away and looks directly into Qrow's eyes. "Knock it off? You heard how he was he going to talk about Pyrrha and you want me... To knock it off?"

"Whoa… this kid might have more anger and issues than I thought. That also tells me Ruby didn't tell me everything going on with him." Qrow shrugs and glares at Leonardo. "For your own safety, I would advise that you avoid talking about Pyrrha Nikos. She wasn't aware of the manipulation going on and used too much power on that Penny girl. She wasn't negligent or vicious, she was gentle, strong, and wise beyond her years. We lost her that day too, Leo."

"Oh…" Leonardo nervously looks at Link, who has a deadly look in his eyes. "I apologize young man, I didn't mean to-!"

"Just drop it." Qrow cuts him off. "She meant a lot to these kids, especially the blonde brats. Continue with what you were saying… Quickly."

"R-right." Leonardo slowly walks to one of the windows in his office and glances behind him cautiously. "Everyone watching the broadcast saw monsters crawling over the city, Atlesian Knights attacking citizens and then it all went black. You could instantly feel the dread in the air. Mistral's territory is the widest reaching in the world, you know. And that makes it infinitely harder to protect against Grimm attacks. We lost so many people, teachers from this very institution… it's only gotten worse."

"How so?" Ruby turns her head diagonally in confusion. "What do you mean?"

Leonardo continues to ramble and everyone listens carefully, everyone except Link that is. After Pyrrha was insulted and then afterward with him deciding not to do anything about it, the huntsman walks back to Ruby and stares in Leonardo Lionheart's direction but does not focus on him. Instead he zones out and starts thinking about Pyrrha, Cinder, and what happened on top of Beacon tower yet again… Along with how an Atlas commanding officer killed Ray, the slaughter of her village, and now he imagines how Amber died with the information Jaune gave him, fueling his anger more

"Psst, Link!" Ruby turns to him and whispers. "This maiden talk is kinda creepy but in a magical way, isn't it?"

No response

"Link?"

Ruby notices his eyes, they stare at Professor Lionheart but are not focused on anything. The same eyes that just a minute ago had life in them, full of fury and rage are now lifeless once again. The huntress balls up her hands in anger, hating to see her friend endure so much emotional pain. Ruby gently grabs one of Link's fingers, wags it around quickly and slowly moves his entire hand

"Huh?" The zoned out Link blinks and realizes where he's at again, then looks down and smiles. "Thank you, Ruby."

"Yeahhhh." She whispers. "What were you thinking about?"

"Oh you know…" Link sighs. "The usual. I should be paying attention and it wasn't his intention to insult Pyrrha but… I was ready to attack."

"You didn't, that's the important part." Ruby smiles back at him

"I suppose that's true y-!"

"WHERE?!" The shout from Haven's headmaster, who is now face to face with Qrow and shaking him by the shoulders, makes both Link and Ruby jump and turn to look at him

"The spring maiden was likely picked up by bandits, specifically the Branwen tribe…" Qrow pushes Leonardo's arms off him. "You know what this means, Leo."

"Raven." Leonardo's face falls

Qrow pulls out his Scroll, walks over and places it on Leonardo's desk. Seconds later, a hologram monitor appears for everyone to see and displays a map of Remnant, zooming into a certain part of Mistral

"Right there." Qrow points. "That's where they've set up their main camp and from what I've been able to gather, Raven has managed to gain a lot of followers since she returned to the tribe, the spring maiden being one of them of course."

"Well, Qrow, I've got to hand it to you." Leonardo walks over and pats Qrow on the back triumphantly. "With these coordinates, we can mount a retrieval force and head out in a few weeks."

Professor Lionheart walks over to the computer, and taps on his desk. A hologram keyboard appears as the nervous man taps away. Before long, Qrow's scroll displays the words 'Copying Files', soon followed by 'Disconnected'

"A few weeks? You've got to be kidding me? My sister has the Spring Maiden, and I know where she is." Qrow angrily slaps books off the Haven headmaster's desk. "We need to go and NOW!"

"So you didn't hear me earlier, I see." Leonardo walks around to sit at his desk again. "This Kingdom is in shambles. I still need to convince the council that I need huntsmen more than they do. Unfortunately, purposely looking for a fight with bandits isn't very high on their list of priorities, especially when the threat of war is looming and we have NO SUPPORT! We are still at odds with Atlas, did you know they are closing the borders?!" He and Qrow stare directly into each other's eyes. "I'm not sure what happened to James in Vale, but it seems to have only worsened some of his more unfortunate tendencies."

(James Ironwood… Now that's a name. So he did make it out alive?) Link thinks to himself before nodding. (Maybe now that I'm associated with Qrow, I can use Ironwood to help me find out who lead the attack on Garanda and who killed Ray.)

"Damn the council. We'll do it ourselves." Qrow smirks, "You and I are trained Huntsmen and these kids aren't exactly pushovers." He points to himself and the five young huntsmen and huntresses with him

"Yeah!" Nora cheers

"More like hell yeah!" Ruby pumps her fist in excitement

"Unfortunately…" Leonardo looks around nervously yet again before he resumes speaking. "You and your sister are evenly matched. And I'm not the fighter I used to be. No offense Qrow, but these students and I can't take on an entire bandit tribe and a maiden that's no doubt had years to hone her skills."

"Hahaha… Yes we can."

Laughter emerges from Link of all people, which cuts the conversations short. The young man who was previously ready to pick a fight with Haven's headmaster is now laughing is if he heard a genuinely funny joke

"What makes you say that?" Leonardo leans his head closer as if to direct all spoken words to a certain direction

"I'm sure there's more than one bandit tribe in the world, but if this 'Branwen tribe' has the same bandits I ran into a couple of weeks ago, we can absolutely take all of them and Raven will be the only issue."

"Y-you know about them?" Leonardo blinks in disbelief. "But how?"

"Well I'm not one-hundred percent certain it is the Branwen tribe but I did take out a handful of bandits at Shion village. I got there before they did…" Link points at Ruby, Jaune, Nora, and Ren. "To make sure everything about Shion was safe for them. Unfortunately, the village was absolutely destroyed and raided by bandits."

"That was the Branwen tribe." Qrow speaks up. "When I followed these kids to Higanbana, I stayed at another inn. Then I had a conversation with Raven, I already knew they were the ones who attacked Shion, but her words confirmed it. 'The weak die, the strong live.' Those were all the words she had to spare for those people."

"Grrr." Jaune grimaces and angrily grips the handle of his sword. "How could they just mercilessly kill them? My family and I used to go there all the time. They were good people."

"I'm sorry Jaune." Ruby mumbles

"Did you see her?" Qrow turns his head towards Link. "Tall woman, black and red attire, sword on her hip, a full face Grimm mask?"

Ruby gasps as Link's heroic story of fighting off bandits and grimm from Shion nearly resulted with him fighting THE Raven Branwen… Although to the young huntress, this infamous leader of a the bandit tribe is known more by the label of Yang's mother

"In that case…" Link nods. "I saw her. We almost fought too, before the Grimm arrived to cause their own destruction. I wish we could have fought now that-!"

"No, you don't want to wish that." Qrow shakes his head. "Stay away from Raven. And that goes for the rest of you too, if and when we take spring from Raven, I'm going to fight her. Is that understood?"

Ruby, Jaune, Nora, Ren, and Leonardo all nod in agreement, the only one who does not, is the stubborn Link

"When it's time to fight, there are no guarantees and most planning goes out the window, everyone here knows that." Link shakes his head. "If Raven hurts you or Ruby, she's mine."

"Listen, you're a talented kid, but you're not ready for someone like Raven." Qrow dismisses him

"I'm sure you didn't think I was ready for Tyrian either." Link crosses his arms and raises an eyebrow

"Yeah I did and you proved me wrong, congratulations." Qrow rolls his eyes. "That guy is not Raven."

"Let's get back on topic." Ruby interjects. "If it's going to take weeks to go and do that... We can't wait around. There has to be something else we can do."

"What about Cinder, Emerald and Mercury?" Jaune asks. "They all came from Haven as exchange students. Do you have anything on them?"

"We looked into the files of Emerald Sustrai and Mercury Black after the Fall of Beacon, while looking into Cinder Fall's file during the fall because of her voice being broadcasted to the entire world." Leonardo's expression drops. "Sadly, nothing but lies and forgeries were found."

Jaune balls up his hands into tight fists as stares at the floor in anger. Seconds of silence pass before laughter is heard once more , and it comes from Link again

"Lies and forgeries." Link smirks. "You would know all about that wouldn't you, Jaune?"

"HEY C'MON!" Nora stands up in anger

"GRAH!" Jaune's shield extends, he draws his sword and sprints at Link, slipping past Qrow with ease

"..." Link's smile fades, his eyes narrow

Regardless of the threat Jaune poses, Link does not grab his own weapons. Instead, he waits until Jaune gets close enough and dodges a predictable straightforward sword slash with sideways jumps in a slick zig-zag pattern to advance forward. By the end of the sequence, all that comes from this 'attack' is Jaune and Link switching spots

"You kids seriously don't listen, do you?!" Qrow turns around in frustration. "I said I don't want to hear you two arguing until after our meeting with Leo."

"Told you I'd remember that mercenary comment." Link balls up his hands now

"You willingly chose to be a mercenary." Ren speaks up

"Yeah! All Jaune said was the truth, plus he was joking too." Nora shakes her head

"Jaune willingly got his way into Beacon by getting his hands on forged transcripts." Link's eyes shift between all three members of the team formerly known as JNPR

"Enough already!" Qrow draws his blade

Jaune, Nora and Ren jump in shock, Ruby's hands cover her mouth as she looks back and forth between her divided friends, and Link is still composed and unfazed

"That's it, time to wrap this up." Qrow angrily looks at Link, then at Jaune, Nora, and Ren, "We got no significant answers out of this conversation and you brats want to act like actual kids." He turns around to face Leonardo. "I can't say this has been a warm reunion, Leo."

"I'm sorry. I know you've all traveled a long way. But I will do everything I can to help." The headmaster of Haven suddenly smiles as he snaps his fingers. "How about better living arrangements? You cannot remain in small apartment rooms during your entire stay at Mistral. I know of just the place, here I'll send you the location right now, how does that sound?"

(Considering how much praise Skylar and team SLVR had for Professor Lionheart, he is not living up to that. The irony of his name too… all I sense from him is fear and angst.) Link shakes his head as his first impression on the Haven headmaster falls very short

"Sounds like a good start. I wanted these kids to see more of the city anyway." Qrow nods, picks up his scroll, and sarcastically shakes it in Leonardo's face, "Local comms are still up, keep in touch." The smiling huntsman turns around. "Come on kids, to the new house Leo is going to graciously let us stay in."

Qrow leads the way out, the six of them all begin to file out of the room one by one. The order directly behind him is Nora, Jaune, Ren, Link, and in the rear is Ruby who turns around to face Lionheart

"It was nice meeting you, Professor." Ruby smiles

"Likewise, dear." Leonardo nods

Qrow, Link, and team RNJR walk back down the hallway of the academy. The five students turn to each other before they all look at Qrow with concern as he mumbles to himself angrily

"Sooo, what do we do now?" Nora speaks up

"Right…" Qrow sighs, turns around and taps on his scroll, "You five, head back to the house, I gave Ruby the location. I need a drink." He turns to Link. "Actually, care to join me? Drinks are on me."

"QROW!" Ruby frowns

(Now that's something new, she's only ever called him 'uncle Qrow' all this time) Link chuckles to himself and waves a hand at Ruby. "It's okay." The boy already has his mind made up. "No thank you."

"Don't say I didn't offer." Qrow walks off, leaving the five huntsmen and huntresses looking at each other with concern now

"Should someone keep an eye on him?" Link asks. "I can go."

"You? Trusted around alcohol?" Jaune snorts

"Very funny, no I'm being serious." Link rolls his eyes. "I can keep an eye on him."

"No." Ruby shakes her head. "My uncle Qrow knows how to take care of himself, we should head to the new house."

"Then let's get moving!" Nora cheers but unfortunately nobody matches her energy

"Yeah." Ren nods

The five of them walk in a single horizontal row out of Haven Academy, with Jaune, Nora, and Ren on one side, Link on the other side, and Ruby in the middle to keep at least a foot of distance in between them

---

Moments Later: Haven Academy, Leonardo Lionheart's Office

Leonardo Lionheart sits in his office with his head in his hands, unsure of what to do next, feeling the guilt eat away at his soul from deceiving Qrow and the students who were mostly gracious to him. The next thing the professor hears is a door opening and a new face coming into the picture, but not a new face to the professor. It's another one of Salem's closest allies, the genius scientist Doctor Arthur Watts

"Are we ready, Leonardo?"

Professor Lionheart glares angrily but fearfully at Arthur Watts as the stern man closes the door behind him and steps into the room. A brief exchange of looks occurs before Leonardo turns his head away from Arthur, who smirks in response. The latter nods and the two of them walk up to a part of his office next to a bookshelf. Seconds later, it is revealed that there is a secret hallway hidden by sliding wooden doors that are perfectly disguised. Both the nervous professor and Arthur Watts enter the secret hallway and it's only a short trip later before they reach the end of the curved hallway is a circular room containing a hybrid creature that appears to be a crystal ball with a grimm, it has tentacles that look as nimble as fabric but have blades at the end of each one

"After you." Arthur chuckles and shoves Leonardo closer to the grimm

"Ugh!" Leonardo groans as he carefully taps on the grimm. "Your Grace, are... you there?"

The grimm comes to life with what appears to be red smoke engulfing the entire inside of the seer grimm for only a second or two before shifting to form an image of Salem inside the Evernight Castle in the Land of Darkness, alongside their supreme leader is the new fall maiden, Cinder Fall

"Hello, Leonardo." Salem smiles wickedly. "Do you have something to report?"

"Of course, ma'am." Leonardo tucks his hands together behind his back. "I would not waste your time if not."

"I must say." Arthur interrupts as he approaches the strange grimm, "I'm still just so fascinated by this creature. Cinder dear, are we coming through?" He playfully taps on the grimm. "Can you see us clearly? Or… Well, as clearly as you can."

"Shut... up." Cinder frowns

"Oh goody…" Arthur begins with a sarcastic tone. "You've recovered."

"I've…" Leonardo cuts in. "I've found the Spring Maiden."

"Is that so?" Salem nods, impressed. "Well done, Arthur. Had I known how useful you'd be in expediting this process, I would've sent you long, long ago."

"Actually." Arthur chuckles, "As much as I'd love to take credit, I can't say that either of us are to thank for this information. I guess you could say… it was handed to us on a silver platter." He says, looking directly at Cinder whilst emphasizing 'silver platter'

"Grrr… get to the point already!" Cinder shouts

"Quiet child." Salem raises her hands, which makes Cinder calm herself instantly. "Explain, if it wasn't you or Leonardo, then who?"

"You see, ma'am." Leonardo speaks up. "Qrow arrived at Haven not too long ago today. He believes the spring maiden has taken residence with his sister's tribe."

"Enough of that for one second." Cinder narrows her eyes. "He made it to Mistral alive?! And are they with him?"

"They?" Leonardo raises an eyebrow

"Yes, Ruby Rose is not the only specific target on our list anymore. We added a new name to it." Salem's voice rumbles with authority. "A boy called Link, who was the main reason Tyrian could not complete his mission."

"B-but your grace!" Leonardo shakes his head. "That boy, Link, he's unhinged! He almost took on the entire Branwen tribe, including Raven herself. He wants to do it again and thinks he can with full confidence. He-!"

Salem's face scrunches up with annoyance at Leonardo having the audacity to make demands, in response to her mood change, one of the Seer grimm's tentacles shoots out and wraps around Leonardo's throat multiple times, choking him

"Leonardo, you've been extraordinarily brave recently, but I can change that in an instant if you think you have authority over our business? Do you remember the first time we met? Because I remember, I remember your fear. I'm not saying you need to fear me but… Do not forget everything that I can do to you." Salem's expression softens and the grimm instantly releases its grip on Leonardo's neck. "Now tell me, did you see those kids with Qrow? And do you know of the tribe's exact location?"

"Y-yes m-ma'am!" The helpless professor coughs and gasps for breath. "Ruby and Link were both with Qrow when they visited Haven today." Leonardo sadly mumbles. "And yes, I do know where the tribe is."

"Good." Salem nods and turns her head. "Cinder, you and your team will meet with Doctor Watts, and together you will convince Raven Branwen that the survival of her people depends on her cooperation. Once you have Spring under control, escort her to the Relic and contact Hazel. The White Fang was promised the destruction of Haven, and they'll have it once we have what we need."

"Understood." Arthur nods

"When you're done with that, your presence will be required Arthur. Tyrian is in need of a new tail."

"What happened to his old one?" Arthur scoffs while raising an eyebrow

"Those two children happened…" Salem frowns

"The silver eyed girl and the 'unhinged' boy defeated Tyrian?" Arthur shakes his head. "I will get that done in no time."

"Good." Salem nods and shuts her eyes, the red engulfing smoke inside the seer fades away as does the image of Salem and Cinder, signifying the end of their conversation from different locations

"I would have used the word deranged or demented to describe that boy." Arthur chuckles. "I don't know who he is or where he comes from, but based on how he spoke, he can snap in an instant… It's clear all he wants to do is avenge his dear friend. I cannot wait to see how that plays out. It will be Cinder's problem after all, not ours."

"O-okay." Leonardo breathes heavily, thankful that the interaction with Salem is over

---

Hours Later: Mistral, The House High Up in the Mountains

Team RNJR and Link, after taking a longer trip than it took to get from their temporary apartment to Haven, find themselves resting comfortably in the house given to them for their entire stay at Mistral, however long that may be. This house is a very upper class and fancy two story house with a downstairs training room, a house likely meant for a platoon or multiple teams in an academy. Ren and Nora sit together on a two-seater couch in the living room while Jaune sits diagonally across from them alone on a three-seater couch. Ruby is in one of the many rooms available presumably sleeping and Link is in the kitchen preparing some snacks

(Am I being a jerk? Maybe I am. After what happened today… I have a right to be a jerk, don't I?) The boy speaks to himself as he dices up a big red apple, shoots the small cubed up fruit into his mouth one by one, and waits for a pot of hot coffee to be made. (In fact, why shouldn't I be? I'm not lying with the things I say and no matter what Jaune said to them, Ren and Nora can think for themselves, if they felt remorse for how they treated me at Beacon, they would have expressed it already.)

"Liiink, can I have some coffee?" Nora giggles

"No!" Ren raises his hand and wags his finger. "It's getting late and Nora already has too much energy as it is."

"You're no fun!" Nora pouts

(Well, I suppose hope isn't completely lost with those two if they can openly talk to me like that.) Link smirks, finishes his apple and pours two mugs of coffee. In one mug, he adds a regular amount of cream and sugar; meanwhile the second mug is fully loaded with cream and sugar. (As much as I hate those three, I should be aware of my actions around Ruby, the last thing needed is making her upset.)

Letting out an audible sigh, Link considering giving Ren or Nora a verbal response, while he thinks on this, he grabs the two mugs of coffee and walks across the living room

"There's leftover coffee in the pot." Link calls out

"Mmmm!" Nora rubs her hands together in excitement. "Those are exactly the words I wanted to hear from you."

"Great, now that's going to be a thing all night." Ren sighs

Link chuckles at this and promptly moves along, heading directly to Ruby's room on the first floor and across the kitchen

"Where are you going?" Jaune frowns

"Ruby's room and before you ask 'why'... It's to talk to her." Link puts on a sarcastic shocked expression

"Leave her alone, why don't you?"

"Because she's my friend and I want to talk to her." Link walks up to the room and taps on the door with light kicks from his foot

"Ugh! I'm reading comics! What is so important that-!" Ruby swings the door open and jumps back. "Link?!"

"Hi." Link smiles and offers her the extra sweetened coffee. "Can I bribe you with coffee for some of your time?"

"Ooooh. You didn't need coffee for some of my time! Please, come in!" Ruby ushers him inside and shuts the door behind her

"What does she see in him?!" Jaune angrily sighs. "He's not the same guy we all befriended at Beacon. He's just an asshole now and a complete piece of-!"

"MAYBE she still likes him?" Nora cuts off his insult and shrugs her shoulders. "They did have something going on at one point."

"Everything has an explanation." Ren nods calmly. "We were wrong to doubt Link at Beacon, perhaps that has something to do with why he and Ruby are good friends regardless of how he's been acting. If we are speculating, she might feel guilt and accepting him despite his changed attitude is the least she can do."

"What do you mean by 'we were wrong'. you are NOT defending him, are you?!" Nora's eyes widen in shock. "After everything he said to Ja-!"

"I would have defended Link if he didn't say those despicable things to Jaune, yes.." Ren firmly states and nods in solidarity with Nora and Jaune. "To blame you for anything that happened during the fall of Beacon is wrong and a disgrace."

"Good to know you're on my side buddy." Jaune smiles warmly. "I don't know why Ruby thinks so highly of him but whatever it is… I hope it doesn't hurt her."

…

…

…

"So what brings you here?" Ruby smiles happily as she plops back down on her bed. "We got to the house, you checked out the entire house, and claimed a room immediately. Didn't even ask me if you wanted to be bunk buddies?"

"There are no bunk beds, Ruby." Link laughs whilst placing Ruby's coffee mug on a wooden table next to her bed, which also has a lamp. "Sorry, for not asking or saying anything to you. I kind of just… needed some space, if that makes sense."

"Hmmm… Nope!" Ruby giggles. "At least, not when it comes to me. But I do understand that you do need it from time to time."

"Thank you for trying your best to understand." Link nods and sits on the edge of the bed. "How are you holding up? You care about me so much and I really appreciate that, but how are you?"

"Ya know, just hanging in there." Ruby nervously laughs, puts down her comic and picks up her mug to take a sip of her coffee. "OW! HOT!"

"I just made it!" Link gasps, only to laugh immediately. "You are something else, you know that?"

"Ahhhh!" Ruby sticks out her tongue and breathes heavily. "Do I have a burn?"

"Ummm…" Link leans closer and shakes his head. "Not at all, your tongue is fine."

"Hanging in there is where I left off. The meeting with Professor Lionheart didn't go so well." Ruby points an index finger at Link and shakes her hand angrily." It didn't help that you and Jaune embarrassed us by almost fighting. I don't know how to feel about that. We're supposed to be united and then there's you guys with the constant taunts and almost getting physical twice, it's unacceptable."

"Yes…" Link lowers his head and nods in agreement as he blows on his coffee to cool it down. "You're right. I'm… Instigating and picking fights. I just can't help it. Jaune, Ren, Nora, looking at them makes me angry and that's the bare minimum. They really blame me for everything and it hurts my soul but also makes my blood boil."

"You don't know that Ren and Nora think that." Ruby shakes her head, repeating the same action to cool down her hot beverage. "Even if Jaune withheld details of your conversation, they have to see both sides."

"They should, but they don't actually 'have' to." Link shrugs and begins drinking his coffee. "Sorry for turning a conversation starting with 'how are you' into something about me, let's move on."

"Okay!" Ruby smiles. "What do you think we're going to do next? Waiting a few weeks to get approval before going to that bandit tribe is going to be insanely boring."

"I agree." Link shakes his head. "Have you given any thought to the fact that we might have to really fight Yang's mom?"

"No." Ruby slowly sips on her coffee as well. "Raven isn't really a topic that ever came up around me. Not by dad, Yang, uncle Qrow… But she's still Yang's mom to me. And Yang couldn't have inherited all her good traits solely from dad, I know there's good inside Yang's mom. What about you? You showed so much confidence in Professor Lionheart's office. Are you really not scared?"

"Honestly?" Link turns his head and looks directly in Ruby's eyes. "No. I'm not scared of her or her pushover bandits. I don't even care about the spring maiden. Keeping you safe is my only goal when we inevitably fight Raven, her tribe, and the spring maiden who I'm sure won't join us without a fight."

"W-why aren't you scared?" Ruby sits up, promptly scooting over and sitting closer to Link, "I know it's not an act because you showed absolutely no fear against Tyrian when…" She sighs. "All of team RNJR did."

"I don't really know how to answer that question other than saying… I'm simply not scared, it's not a death wish situation either. My mind is set on protecting you, ensuring we emerge victorious, eliminating the bad guys forever, and saving the world."

"So it's not some weird death wish adrenaline rush, could it be that you're determined in a courageous way?" Ruby bumps her forehead against Link's shoulder. "Awww, brave Link wants to keep me safe."

"Be quiet." Link laughs, very amused by her jokes. "I guess since I don't have an answer, that one will do. Consider me a guy with the power of courage."

"Are you mocking me?" Ruby leans back to place both hands on her hips and make a pouty face

"Never." Link shakes his head. "I'm sorry for embarrassing you. I was being selfish and only thought about myself in that moment."

"Which moment?" Ruby asks sarcastically

"To poke fun at Jaune and make him angry… it was stupid and I should've been more considerate of you and Qrow." Link rolls his eyes but with a smile on his face. "Will you forgive me?"

"Apologyyyyyyyyyyyy!" Ruby prolongs the word as long as she can before the huntress runs out of breath. "Accepted!"

"Excellent news." Link smiles. "Now that I have you here Ruby, I must ask you for your help."

"R-really? You? Need my help?" Ruby's eyes widen. "Yes please, tell me. What could you possibly need from me?"

"I went downstairs and behind the indoor training room there is also a lot of open space in the back patio. Do you think… We could spar there? You know, help each other improve as warriors."

"O-oh, sure!" Ruby nods. "I don't see why you'd need to spar me, you're already stronger than all of us with the exception of my uncle Qrow. If you should ask anyone to spar in order to get stronger, it's him."

"About that…" Link looks away, too prideful in admitting what's bothering him. "I do not mean a regular spar either. I… wish to be fast like you. Please help me develop my speed, Ruby."

"Fast? Like me? It's all in my semblance, Link." Ruby turns her head in confusion as she keeps bumping her forehead into his shoulder

"No no no." Link turns and inadvertently makes Ruby bump her head into his chest. "You are naturally much faster than me, Ruby. And while I'm satisfied with my current speed, I know it can be improved."

"Hmmm." Ruby lets out an exaggerated sound

"Come on Ruby." Link begs playfully. "It's cool to see you move like the superheroes in the comics you read, even if I never become that fast… Any small improvements will go a long way."

"You think I move like a superhero?" Ruby blushes from the nerdy compliment. "That's so funny, I really like that."

"Not think, I know you move like a superhero." Link smirks. "Not to sound creepy but when I was following you guys and a fight commenced, I watched you with a lot of intrigue. Your speed was incredible Ruby, you've gotten a lot faster since we were last at Beacon. You also gained better control of your semblance, I noticed that too. Before you could only go in a straight line, now you can control your movement and change directions at will."

"Flatterer." Ruby sarcastically says, referencing back to when Link called her that in the early morning

"Okay maybe I am buttering you up but it's the truth."

"Stoppp seriously." Ruby continues to laugh. "Coming from you, who is so strong for a teenager our age, it means a lot that you think you have something to learn from me."

"I have plenty to learn from you." Link nods. "I'm sorry for not expressing this sooner, but now that we're in Mistral, now is as good a time as any. One of the skills I did not improve much on… Is my speed, now it's time to improve and quickly now that we are here."

"HMMM!" Ruby continues before she leans back and nods her head joyfully. "Okayyy I will help you and you sir, have you help me too. I want to be strong like you, our fighting style is different but any hand to hand I can pick up from you or defensive techniques will help me so much. This training will also make my body stronger too."

"Done, let's go!" Link stands up, downs the rest of his coffee and offers her a hand

"R-right now?" Ruby rubs her arm nervously

"Yeah, is it a bad time?" Link asks

"No no, it's just really cool how soon you want to get faster."

Ruby finishes her coffee as well, eagerly grabs her scythe-sniper rifle Crescent Rose, takes Link's hand and allows him to lead her back out into the living room and down the stairs. The two friends race downstairs and sprint past the indoor training room that contains some space and plenty of weapons to train with. Link opens a pair of sliding doors and leads the silver eyed girl to the patio behind the house. Immediately noticed, is a lot of open space and flat land too, with grass and trees to the far left and right, a perfect place to train. There is a wooden rail high enough to be head level with Ruby and the view over this rail is beautiful and peaceful, it is not the entire city of Mistral but there are multiple houses below them and plenty of greenery such as trees, hills, and mountains

"You saw this?! And didn't tell me right away?" Ruby's eyes widen again and a bright smile appears on her face

"I figured it would be better saved when I asked you for help." Link smirks and continues leading her to the open space. "Do you need a few minutes or would you like to begin straight away?"

"Let's do this." Ruby separates herself from Link and backs away, she rubs her hands excitedly. "What do you want me to do?"

"We can start normally before we transition over and begin hand to hand. Then there's our speed training... Your semblance, activate it as much as you can, whenever you can." Link nods, embracing the difficult prospect. "Hit me, dodge my attacks, do whatever you can."

"Alright!"

Ruby activates crescent rose and slams her scythe on the ground edge first. Link draws his sword and shield, gives Ruby a trusting nod, then sprints at her with full speed. The girl begins by firing bullets at her sparring partner, but instead of blocking them with his shield as he would normally deal with most incoming attacks, Link jumps, spins, performs sideways jumps, and slashes at the bullets with his sword, all in an effort to slowly increase his speed and agility. Successfully dodging a handful of bullets, Link is in front of Ruby within seconds, the huntsman attacks with powerful but basic sword strikes, multiple rapid jabs to test Ruby's defense. The girl grabs her scythe and spins it around in her hands to deflect and block the attacks, but the jabs prove to be to powerful as an upward jab that is luckily not close to hitting her collides perfectly with crescent rose as its mid-spin and breaks Ruby's rhythm, throwing her off balance

"W-whoa!" Ruby struggles, her trusted scythe slips out of her grasp from the aforementioned jab. "Hehehe, you didn't mean my defense as part of my strength, right?"

"Rubyyy." Link smirks. "You know I absolutely consider that as part of your training."

"I knowww." She groans in frustration. "Ugh!"

Ruby jogs a couple of steps forward to pick up crescent rose, but she instantly has to spring back into action when Link is charging at her with no weapons out, intending on making this next sequence hand to hand. Putting up a stiff guard with both hands and forearms awkwardly in front of her, she blocks two weak jabs with Link's left hand, then Ruby gets her chin touched with an uppercut due to a bad guard and no head movement. She stumbles back, her head whips angrily and now she runs at Link with her hand cocked back from a mile away, allowing the huntsman to easily telegraph her punch, side step it, and redirect her punch with an open hand parry, sending the punch and Ruby going wide left

"This is the same way you blocked Yang's punches, right? And that Skylar girl from team SLVR?" Ruby asks whilst regaining her balance

"Deflecting but yeah, it doesn't really involve any precise technique, it's merely all about timing and momentum. If my opponent is too fast or puts too much power in a punch, that can happen." Link nods

"I don't get it, isn't punching with all your strength good? That's how Yang gets by."

"It is good, you're right. Some exceptions are if you're an accurate puncher or you're a volume puncher." Link continues. "The first one is simple really, you take your time, let your opponent strike first, figure them out and then pick your shot. Yang is the volume puncher, she overwhelms her opponents with so many strikes, they can avoid or block them at first sure, but eventually some punches will get through no matter speed or defense."

"Oooh, it's like I'm right back in school." Ruby giggles and practices the open hand parry Link just did to her. "Give me some more lessons, Professor Link."

"This isn't a lesson but a question." Link crosses his arms and raises an eyebrow sarcastically. "Which would you like to be? I don't imagine you can copy Yang's fighting style in a few weeks, she's been doing it all her life."

"N-no probably not that one." Ruby blushes in embarrassment. "I'll be an accurate puncher, or shall I call myself a sniper? Get it? Because I'll be precise?!"

"You can call yourself whatever you want if you can get to that level first. Your turn, deflect one of my strikes and to make it realistic I will add full power to my punches this time."

"Y-you mean…" Ruby feels her jaw. "That punch you hit me with... Wasn't full power?"

(Whoops... I definitely should not tell her it was only ten percent power too.)

Link does not say a word, instead he runs at Ruby and at the last second decides to change his hand to hand approach by going crouching down and sweeping her legs. However, this was not like Beacon Academy where he and Pyrrha constantly swept Jaune's legs out from under him. Ruby yelps at her first leg being swept but reacts quickly and plants her leg into the ground the way she's seen Link do it countless times, wiggling her foot and digging her heel into the ground. Despite only being on one leg and off balance, the huntress stays on her feet as the rest of the attack only hits her leg but nothing happens in consequence

"Smart and fast thinking, good work Ruby." Link slides his leg back and stands up

"Thanks. But HEY! what happened to what you were actually going to do?!" Ruby narrows her eyes

"I know, sorry." Link chuckles, amused at his switch up. "It's just to keep you guessing and prepare you for anyth-!"

Repeating the same action, Link cuts off his own sentence and sprints at Ruby, who lifts up her arms in the same position again, protecting mostly her face but leaving her chin, back and sides of her head and body open for strikes. The now powerful jabs break through Ruby's guard immediately and when Link starts throwing straight punches and hooks, it forces the huntress to start dodging with panicky slips as each punch nearly connects with her head. Although it's more about being scared to get hit, rather than showing good head movement, it still works for her nonetheless. The huntsman leans forward and rotates to throw an awkward spinning elbow strike to the head, Ruby raises one hand up to the side of her head to block it, but when Link's attack collides with her blocking hand and head, it disorients her and sends her stumbling backward

"B-but I blocked it?" Ruby shakes her head rapidly

"You did but the attack was stronger than your defense, next time block with both hands."

"You couldn't have told me that BEFORE you elbowed me?!" She whines. "And where did you even learn any of this stuff? The fancy spinning punch and elbows, ugh! I wish every fight was at a distance. I would crush all of you with my baby."

"Yes you probably would destroy anybody if fights were always contested at a distance… But they're not." Link nods. "Also, of course I could tell you about proper blocking, but I learn better by doing it rather than being told. So I figured you can learn the same way too."

He smiles politely and allows Ruby to get herself together before he runs at her for another attack. Once she's ready with her hands up, it's finally time to drill what was set out in the first place. The boy runs at her slowly and suddenly... His vision goes black, he cannot hear the outside world or Ruby's voice anymore. His heart starts beating rapidly, it's difficult to breathe, and the ear piercing white noise and ringing begins, Link growls angrily at his returning emotions that only went away for twenty-four hours

"Link?" Ruby asks when she notices he's slowing down

(C-c-cant let her see me… like… this! P-push… through!) Link picks up his speed when he regains his vision and throws an uncharacteristic low kick to Ruby's leg

"W-what the?! Ow!" Ruby does not expect the attack and takes it full force on her knee, but not much damage is caused due to activating her aura at the last second

"STAY READY!" Link spits out with pure anger and aggression

Another leg kick is thrown but Ruby dodges this one, although it's not long before Link returns to punches, with a jab followed by a hook that both are blocked by Ruby's sloppy but now sturdier guard. Maintaining his intensity and surge of anger, Link jumps and extends his legs for a flying side kick that lands on her chest, right over the top of her skirt but under her sleeves. The impact of the kick sends Ruby backwards, but not flying or rolling to the ground as she groans, digs her feet in the ground and slides back. Link sprints to her yet again and when he's face to face with Ruby, he lunges forward and throws a powerful straight punch

"Gotcha!" Ruby growls, slips the punch, slides over to the right, seconds away from knuckles about to touch her cheek, she deflects and pushes the punch with a strong palm slap; additionally, for revenge, she knees Link in the gut as he finishes stepping through with his attack

"Oof!" Link slumps down to one knee and catches his breath, the knee to his gut snaps him back to reality mentally, he shakes his head and gives Ruby a thumbs up. "Good stuff, that knee packs a lot of power."

"Really? Thanks!" Ruby jumps and walks away from Link, return to where she left crescent rose

(Thanks for bringing me back too, I'm glad we were just doing hand to hand when I… what is this anyway? It's like I wasn't here mentally but I got angrier and almost hit Ruby with some dangerous strikes.) Link shrugs and gets up, then turns around and he's in shock at what he sees next

"GYAH!"

Ruby lets out a battle cry, yet she is not visible anymore, but her red hood is and it is in a spinning twisted motion, with rose petals trailing behind. The huntress uses her semblance 'Petal Burst' as requested by Link, who cannot react fast enough to dodge and settles for grabbing his shield and blocking the incoming dashing girl

BOOM!

The powerful collusion occurs, Link is sent sliding backwards whilst Ruby bounces off the shield and returns to her original spot willingly, showing that she's managed to control her semblance a lot since she was last at Beacon Academy as suggested earlier. The former shakes his head and puts his shield away, frustrated at his own instincts to immediately grab his defensive weapon when there is an immediate threat

"Bad Link." Ruby smiles brightly. "You wanted to dodge, be hit, and learn how to match my speed to one day be faster than me, how are you gonna do that when-!"

"I know!" Link sighs. "Come at me again, I promise not to use my shield."

"..." Ruby shuts her eyes and concentrates deeply, her brows furrow but she's more than ready

ZOOM!

Rose petals fly in the sky when the youngest huntress of the group speeds towards Link, who remains still but readies himself, visibly inhaling and exhaling. When she gets close enough, Link pushes off both feet and dodges the first attack, but when he lands, Ruby has already circled back around and collides with him back first!

"Ah!" Link falls over stomach first and hurriedly gets back up to his feet. "Don't slow down on me either, I'm never going to get better if you take it easy."

Ruby grants his additional request whilst still using her semblance and dashes at Link once again. The same happens again with the first strike being evaded, but when Ruby comes back around to collide into Link before his feet are set, he disappears from Ruby's sights

"Huh? Where did he go? I know he has his moments of moving like a flash but, where is he?" Ruby says these words herself but out of her sight is Link who is now on her right, he spins in place and kicking Ruby with a spinning side kick, connecting with her midsection, which also shuts down the semblance and knocks her to the ground

"Ahhh!" Ruby gets up to her knees and sniffles. "S-see? Your speed is already top notch."

"Only because you attacked the same way." Link shakes his head. "Anyone can pick up on a pattern, even Jaune."

"R-right." She smiles and gets up. "No more attacks from you, just keep up with me!"

Ruby briskly jogs forward before jumping and getting right back into her rotating speedy rose petal shedding state. Being allowed to strike, she darts straight at Link and changes how she approaches by going up, down, and side to side, attempting to throw her sparring partner off track. Link on the other hand, leaps over the spinning girl, lands behind her and grins as he chases her with all the speed he has. Ruby circles back around, only to realize she is now being trailed by her good friend who uses impressive speed to try his absolute hardest to catch up. This cat and mouse chase continues for about fifteen seconds before the huntress speeds up ever more and is practically untraceable to the human eye or even advanced technology. However, Link keeps his sights on the rose petals and does his best to stay behind her and upon figuring out her new pattern, he explodes and dashes behind her suddenly. The struggling boy reaches forward and nearly gets a finger on Ruby while she is in her semblance, but the girl shoots up in the air, comes back down to the ground and exits her semblance

"H-how did you almost…" Ruby gasps. "That was so cool."

"Luck." Link mischievously shrugs

"Shut up!" Ruby shakes her head. "There's luck and then there's improving as fast as you already did from one training session. That's no fair!"

"No fair?" Link chuckles. "You're already getting better at blocking and dodging straight forward attacks, that'll come in handy against someone like Mer-! Ughhh!"

Unexpectedly, Link drops to one knee and leans forward, he breathes rapidly and holds his stomach in obvious pain but it is not clear exactly what he is experiencing as he does not voice any pain or trouble

(What the hell? What is this feeling? Something's not right.) He grunts

"Link!" Ruby runs over and drops to her knees. "Are you okay? Did you move faster than what you can handle? Is it your lack of sleep? Do you need me to get you anything?"

"N-no." Link shakes his head, drops down to both knees, and straightens himself by sitting up. "Nothing is wrong, this has nothing to do with me... I don't think."

"But you just fell over after we trained?" Ruby looks around in confusion. "Should I go get Ren? He might know what to-!"

"Don't you dare ask them for help, I know you care about me but I don't want their help. I'm fine... I promise." Link stands up and stares off at the sky, more specifically at the setting sun. "Something's wrong."

"What do you mean?" Ruby asks

"The feeling in my stomach was a sign. Imagine something happening to a friend or family member and either your stomach drops, something falls to the ground or you don't feel that great."

"Ohhh." Ruby's mouth opens in shock. "I understand. What or who do you think it is?"

"I'm not sure, but the real question should be, who is in trouble?" Link narrows his eyes and stares directly into the sun

---

One Hour Prior: Lake Matsu, Nearby Anima

Weiss Schnee has enacted her plan to escape her abusive father and leave home, which felt more like a prison than a safe haven. The huntress pays to illegally stowaway aboard an Atlesian cargo ship flown by one single pilot who takes a hefty sum of lien. The two of them make it out of Atlas easily by flying 'under the radar', although this results in taking much longer getting to Anima than flying would normally take. However, near the end of their trip, they are attacked by a massive swarm of lancers, an aerial grimm that attack the cargo ship after destroying two mistral ships with ease. Nevertheless, with help from illegally smuggled dust on the cargo ship, Weiss uses it to take care of all the lancers, with the exception being the queen lancer. Weiss remains calm and shows the composure of a seasoned huntsman or huntress, and summons her Arma Gigas after having developed it considerably whilst training at home

"Pull up!" Weiss shouts as loud as she can, but her words fall on deaf ears. "NOW!"

The Atlesian pilot hears the loud 'now' and slams on the controls to pull up to fly further in the air, panicking and turning the ship upside down in the process. Despite this, Weiss summons a black glyph to secure her footing and place on the ship. The Arma Gigas leaps out of the ships and dives for the queen lancer, controlled by Weiss, it disappears and reappears immediately underneath the grimm with a glyph under its feet. The summoning jumps up and slashes the lancer, disappears, and reappears to the lancer's side, another dashing slash occurs before it reappears behind the grimm again, being able to strike one more time, reappearing in front of the grimm. Unfortunately for the two people in the cargo ship, the queen lancer fires its stinger at the Arma Gigas instinctively, the summoning deflects the stinger with its sword, which causes the stinger to fire away in a different direction, soon smashing into one of wings of the ship. This short battle between the Arma Gigas and the queen lancer ends when the summoning pushes off the white glyph and spins mid air once before slicing through the grimm for the last time, causing it to fade away into black dust. But the trouble isn't over yet for the Schnee and Atlesian pilot

"Ahhh! Hang on kid! We're going down! If you can abandon ship, do it!" The atlas pilot shouts as he leaves his seat and runs down to the cargo hold

"I'm not giving up!" Weiss shakes her head

The cargo ship has taken too much damage and slowly descends towards the nearest piece of land. Weiss tries to use her semblance to slow down the trajectory of the ship, with a row of seven black glyphs appearing in front of the ship, but the huntress' efforts are not enough, the ship is momentarily stalled by each glyph until it smashes through all of them and crash lands in a forest. Although Weiss fails to stop the crash of the ship, her attempt lessens the impact of the crash, thus saving both of their lives

…

…

…

Present Time: Forests of Anima

The previously undercover and under the radar Atlesian cargo ship crashes and is now destroyed in one of the many forests of Anima. Weiss lies injured and fatigued on the ground outside of the ship miraculously, her clothes are dirtied and surprisingly nearby her is the unconscious Atlesian pilot who did his best to fly her from Atlas to Anima, falling short of reaching Mistral by a short margin

"U-ugh…" Weiss groans loudly, she cannot open her eyes entirely but manages to open a sliver

"Hey Weiss! Wake up!"

"Weiss! Thank goodness!"

"I've missed you Weiss, I'm so glad you're with us again."

"Whaaa…"

The injured Schnee cannot even finish one word when she hears the voices of three people in the order they spoke: Ruby, Yang, and Link. The three voices get closer and closer until she can 'see' them right before her own eyes, in their old attires; even Link, who despite still wearing the same attire currently, now has his old green hat covering his blonde hair. Weiss reaches out her hand to them and the first to take it is the imaginary Link who tries to help her up, then Ruby steps in, tries to no avail, and lastly Yang, who also has no success

"H-help me…" Weiss cries out softly

"Kid?" The pilot slowly wakes up and witnesses two things: Weiss reaching out to nobody and three people approaching them, two people dressed like bandits and a tall woman behind them. "This isn't good. I'm not a fighter and the kid is out of it. I don't know what she's trying to grab at either, she must be delirious."

"Help me Link, Ruby, Yang... please." Weiss calls out as her eyes are fully open now

"What do you think?" One of the bandits speaks up, he holds a semi-automatic rifle in his hands

"I think these two are a long way from Atlas." The second bandit speaks with a beaten and chipped machete in his hand

The tall woman is revealed to be Raven Branwen, she steps forward in between the two bandits and stands directly above Weiss, the woman and girl are now staring into each others eyes

"W-who are you?" Weiss asks while squinting and trying to identify who they could be

"Never mind who I am, little girl." Raven smiles and looks at her subordinates. "We just hit the jackpot, this one will get us a massive haul."

The face of the young huntress changes expression from confusion to concern as she looks up at this woman who looks like someone familiar. Raven picks up her right foot and stomps on Weiss' face, instantly knocking her out

"Good, I'm glad that's over with." Raven scoffs. "I'll be damned if another kid ever gives us trouble again."

"You mean that brat with the shitty wooden mask?" The bandit with the machete asks

"Yes, him." Raven frowns and turns to the same bandit that just spoke. "Take her and her sword back to the camp. We'll ransom her back to Atlas for everything they have, keep the sword for our use and-!"

Raven's head snaps to the pilot who tried his best to stay quiet and play dead, but being conscious and in so much pain, he can't help but move barely an inch while letting out a quiet huff

"He's still alive?"

"What do we do with him?"

The two bandits look at the pilot with angry expressions, then turn to their leader for a solution

"He's useless." Raven shakes her head and turns her head to the bandit with the machete. "You, kill him. He's already weakened and near death, we'd be doing him a favor by putting him out of his misery."

"Yes ma'am." The bandit sprints over to the pilot and raises his machete

"N-no! Wait, please!" The pilot pleads. "Ransom me back too stop! Don't do th-!"

STAB!

SLASH!

With two strikes of the machete directly to the back, the Atlesian pilot dies a fast but brutal death and soon enough, the bandits leave the crash site with a dead pilot left hind and Weiss in their possession now…

---

Mistral: The House High up in the Mountains, Back Patio

Link and Ruby stand together, watching the sun set on another day and their second official day in Mistral. The latter turns to her friend in hopes of getting a new answer but the former continues to stare at the sun with a look of frustration in his eyes

"Please, give me something." Ruby grabs onto his arm and shakes it. "What do you think is wrong? Is it uncle Qrow? Do you think something happened to him?"

"I don't know Ruby." Link shakes his head and clenches his fist against his stomach, grabbing fabric in the process. "Whoever it is, I just hope they're okay."

"They are." Ruby smiles. "And if they're not, you'll kick all the bad guys butts and teach them a lesson for hurting your friend."

"You bet I will." Link nods, breathes calmly and slowly releases the tight fist

"WHOA!"

Shouting followed by a loud thud is heard upstairs; even after the thud there are gasps. The loud shout and 'whoa' comes from a recognizable voice: Qrow. In spite of that, the rest of the sounds are not easy to make out and then… it goes completely silent, the lack of sound being more suspicious than the commotion that only finished seconds ago

"I wonder what that's about?" Ruby frowns at the distraction. "I hate that it's cutting into our time but, we should probably go check it out."

"Agreed, to both." Link sighs but follows it up with a nod. "Let's go."

"What no race this time?" Ruby snickers

"You just want to show off at this point." Link chuckles whilst shaking his head. "No race this time."

"Borinnnng!" Ruby punches his arm as the two friends head back inside

Walking past the downstairs training room, Link and Ruby make their way upstairs and everything draws their attention all at once. Qrow is sprawled out on the couch, Nora and Ren are looking at him with concern, while Jaune angrily looks elsewhere. This elsewhere happens to be in the direction of a young boy who looks like he ranges from nine to fourteen years old. He has dark brown messy hair, tan skin, a faint blush and freckles on his cheeks. The young boy's eyes are a perfect hazel with a yellow-green iris. As for his clothing, he wears a dirty white shirt like he's been working on a farm all day. His sleeves are rolled up and orange suspenders are used to hold his dark pants. Along with that, there's what he wears on his hands and feet, orange gloves and brown boots. Oddly enough, the boy wears a bandage around his neck, but he does not appear to be hurt in the slightest

"What's going on?" Link asks

Nora, Ren, and Jaune turn to look at him and Ruby promptly. Qrow props himself up on the couch with his elbows to glance at them too before he drops back down, he appears to be very drunk but in a happy state

"Oh boy…" Ruby sighs. "Uncle Qrow, did you get drunk again?"

"Maybe." Qrow burps and laughs

"Who is that?" Link lifts his left arm and points a finger at the unknown boy

"Your guess is as good as ours." Nora mumbles. "We heard a knock, Jaune opened the door and there's this cute kid who asked for Ruby."

"Me? Because of Qrow?" Ruby nervously laughs

"Yeah! Duh!" Nora retorts

"Okay, that explains why he's here but…" Link's eyes do not leave the boy's. "Who are you?"

"Hehe, here it comes." Qrow chuckles

With Link's serious tone not matching the energy of the happy and bubbly Nora or the relaxed but nervous Ruby, all the attention and stares go back to the boy. Awkwardly, he walks in the house and shuts the door behind him, conveniently without turning his back to the teenagers, as if to perhaps not reveal something hidden. He looks around nervously, still without having said a single word, to everyone's anticipation. This mysterious boy takes a deep breath, slowly exhales the intake of air, and opens his mouth to speak…

---

(Author's note: That'll do it for this chapter, I hope you guys enjoyed it. I also want to add that chapters 11, 12, and 13 have been re-written/edited, with chapter 13 done from scratch due to idiot me deleting it by accident. I looked through all my old files for a draft of the original chapter but could not find anything. I hope the replacement chapter is better than the original, in case anyone remembers it. Have a great day everybody and stay tuned for the next chapter and rewrites.)